The Google ad algorithm really did me right this time. An ad for this movie appeared on a YouTube video I was watching , which prompted a spit-take: did that say…Sheikh Jackson? As in Michael Jackson?! I loaded the movie expecting it would just be one from that brand of goofy Egyptian slapsticks I often find on airplanes, but oh was I delightfully incorrect. This is a nuanced, poetic film exploring self-discovery, faith, and modern masculinity. 1000% recommend.
TV show: Secret of the Nile
The COSTUMES. The INTRIGUE. THE CLASS WARFARE OF IT ALL! (But also I do actually love all the rich ladies’ 1950s dresses.) During that awkward gap of time after my academic program ended and I had to sit around waiting for responses on pending job applications, this show was just 30 episodes of suspense-filled escapism that I so desperately needed. Secret of the Nile (“Grand Hotel” is the Arabic title) is based on the plot of a Mexican telenovela, reimagined in 1950s Aswan, Egypt. The translation is actually quite good; for anyone unfamiliar with the conversational rhythms of SWANA social culture, I recommend this as a way to acquaint yourself with the linguistic dances one does around here.
Music: Lynn Adib
Speaking of music—high up on my Spotify Wrapped is Lynn Adib's jazz album Youmma. Her genre (if one can say she has one—she's nearly peerless, in my limited opinion, though see also Mina, a collaborative project between Portugal’s and Palestine’s Terez Suliman) is perhaps the best of what “fusion,” that amorphous, politically-fraught category, has to offer.
Music: DAM
A very different mood than Madame Adib, but equally delicious. You do not have to speak Arabic to appreciate DAM's flow, although, if you do catch their semantic drift, what you will find is unparalleled wordplay—backflips over borders, oppressive politicians, gendered expectations, you name the social issue and they’ve probably addressed it in sonically interlocking, punchy punctuation.
Essay: "Fairouz in Exile"
A written meditation on the meaning of home for Syrian refugees in Germany. Beautifully written; painfully read. Perhaps use this essay as a way to reflect on what it means to still be responding to “emergency” ten years after violence begun. This essay demonstrates the ways that violence is ongoing, long after individuals themselves may find "peace."
Notes of a Native Son
Okay, so admittedly not quite on the SWANA theme (but did you know Baldwin lived in Turkey for a decade of his life?), however I find this writing to be universal. I have never picked up an essay by James Baldwin that did not lend clarity to nearly all of the immediate happenings occupying my thought. He underscores the importance of an honest engagement with communal history, and the change in spiritual orientation such an engagement would require, an excavation of self, and of soul. Especially in this year, as the world has been made by tireless organizers to face more fully the immortal injustices that black Americans have been experiencing, reading Baldwin is a surefire way to "keep your hands in the fire," as an Arabic proverb would have it, i.e., keep your heart and mind on existential social issues (and their personal consequences for us all).
Lastly—I still stand by all the recommended reading/listening/watching that I originally put together in 2018!